60 
Appendices to Eighth Annual Report 
water from the tubes of course is then at an end, and the water on the 
upper deck, having now no check by the water thrown backwards from the 
tubes, rushes down unobstructed at a fearful pace, especially when on a 
gradient of 1 in 4, as it is on these flshways, and no salmon could possibly 
go over them. 
This was discovered after the first flood had passed over these fish ways, 
and two things were done to prevent it in future but neither of the two 
have had the desired effect. One of the plans was putting crossbars of 
iron and wire across the entrance to each tube, so as to prevent stones, etc., 
from getting into them, the fault of this plan being that if the grating 
was close enough to prevent sand and gravel from entering the tubes, it 
also prevented the water from getting in in sufficient quantity to give it 
any force when it reached the far end of the tube, and it simply oozed up 
at the right side of the top-deck and has no effect in checking the down- 
ward flow of water, and besides, the grating gets covered with leaves and 
other rubbish, and soon stops the entrance of water into the tubes almost 
entirely. Another attempt was made to avoid this at Westfield Fishway 
by means of two iron hecks or gratings, one being placed right across the 
stream some distance in front of the top of the fishway, and auother running 
up and down stream, the top end reaching within a few feet of the one 
across stream, the gap being left to allow the salmon to get out; the 
result of this was that the heck across the stream caused an eddy behind 
it, where the sand and gravel whirled round and found its way down the 
opening left for the salmon to get up. The only plan I could suggest as 
a remedy against this filling of the tubes with gravel, is to have the top 
end of the fishway 3 or 4 feet above the bed of the river, and the objections 
to this is that it would only be during high floods that there would be any 
water in the fishway at all ; in fact, I see no practical remedy for this, and 
until such a remedy is discovered the M 'Donald Fishway as at present 
constructed is unsuited to our Scotch rivers. 
ALEX. LUMSDEN, 
Superintendent, Tay District Board. 
NOTE IX. 
Design of an Improved Macdonald Fishway sent to Mr Young, by 
Colonel Marshall Macdonald, Washington, head of the Fisheries Depart- 
ment of the United States, in answer to a Letter from Mr Young point- 
ing out the defects of the Macdonald Fishways on the Ericht. 
